Operation: Holly Jolly
by antepathy
Summary: This holiday, Barricade's in charge.  Grindor's a nerd, Starscream is fabulous and Brawl really stinks. Holiday themed crack.


G  
>Bayverse<br>Decepticon Ensemble: Barricade, Blackout, Grindor, Starscream, Bonecrusher, Brawl  
>warnings: this is holiday crack. Meant loosely to follow on from <span>this<span>

"Listen up, morons." Barricade scowled, tapping his forearm with his talons in irritation. "I'm in charge of this whole Chrismess thing this year." He glared at Grindor. Yeah that plan had sucked. Until…it had stopped sucking. All right, to be honest, Barricade didn't remember much of that night, beyond some fuzzy happiness that smelled like jetframe. But before that? A lot of suck. And purple plastic pine needles.

Grindor shrugged. Heh. Copter probably thought he was going to prep himself to gloat. Yeah? Not so fast, rotorhead. Barricade was in charge and he had done _research_.

Kind of.

"Right. So." He called up the combat board. "This year, our mission is better. Cultural understanding." He sneered. "Is for sissies."

"And airframes," Bonecrusher muttered from the back, his tailfork twitching.

But this time, it worked in Barricade's favor. "Damn straight." He stopped. Agreeing with Bonecrusher? This felt…weird. And not weird in a good way. Shake it off, Barricade. "Our mission is really simple. Capture San-Ta."

"Kidnapping," Starscream said, examining his long talons, as if already bored. "How…original."

"Classic," Barricade countered. "Besides. This San-Ta mech is the one who delivers all those presents, remember?"

Grindor's optics flared. "You wouldn't remember that if we hadn't had cultural grounding," he said pointedly.

"Presents," Starscream mused, stroking his chin. "I may be persuaded to assist."

"Assist? It's a fraggin' combat mission!" Seriously. Airframe attitude. Like Barricade was going to get down on one knee and beg for the jet's cooperation.

"What are your mission aims?" Starscream shot back.

Heh. So glad you asked, jet. Barricade called up his slides. "Option 1. San-Ta has presents. Which is stuff. We could use stuff." Even coal. Fossil fuels? Excellent present.

"San-Ta's stuff—the real stuff," Grindor said, folding his arms over his broad chassis, "is specifically for the nice."

"Nice? I'm fraggin' nice. What's not nice about me?"

"Would you like that list alphabetized?" Starscream said, sweetly, reaching for his datapad.

"Write you a fraggin' sonnet," Bonecrusher muttered. "Already have one prepared, in fact."

Well, that was a disturbing thought.

"Point is," Grindor said, "San-Ta only gives presents to the nice. Not you." The way the copter adjusted on his seat indicated he thought he was in the 'nice' category.

Nice, Barricade decided, is for losers. AND airframes.

"RIGHT," Barricade said, loudly. Seriously. When did his niceness become a topic of discussion? "Option Two. We hold this San-Ta hostage. For ransom and stuff."

"Hostage. You think humans are going to surrender to have their fat red present-dispensing squishy back." Blackout spoke up from the back. He was too cool for school, apparently, leaning against the back wall.

"Look what we did to get Megatron back."

"And Megatron doesn't even give presents!" Brawl chirped, outraged.

Starscream grumbled, beakplates clicking unhappily. "Not anything anyone wants."

"Yeah, but." Blackout's cheekflares riffled. "An entire planet. For one human. Come on. If they tried to ransom Megatron for all of Cybertron, how many of you would go along with it?"

"_You_ would," Starscream said, red optics rolling.

"Yeah. But I'm not in charge. Unfortunately." The rotors flared, menacingly.

Frag. Not this again. Blackout was nice, but frag. One mech fanclub for Megatron.

"It's tactically too costly," Grindor mused, gaining the back of his helm a hard glare from his twin. "One mech, against an entire future." He shook his head.

"Nice to know whose side you're on," Blackout muttered.

"Blackout." Grindor half-turned in his seat. "It's simple combat calculus."

Calculus shmalculus, Barricade thought. And that was apparently what Blackout was thinking, too, only with more profanity, judging by the look on his face, the way his mouth snapped to a narrow vertical line.

Bonecrusher chortled. "Trouble in copterland? Someone going to recharge on the floor tonight?" His tail whipped, the end forming a baton to tap out a beat in the air. "Blackout and Grindor sitting in a tree. _Not_ K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

"Fraggin' master poet, you are," Barricade snarled.

"There is room in my berth," Starscream said, tilting back, crossing his long, elegant legs. "Should one of you be…interested." He flexed his toes, studying the effect of the gloss of light over the burnished metal of the long flexible toes.

As was everyone else in the room. Except Brawl who had suddenly caught whiff of some horrible smell and had apparently tracked it to…his underarm.

Well, that was enough to dispel any happy from Barricade's cortex. "RIGHT," he bellowed. "Mission. San-Ta. Kidnapping."

"Interception," Bonecrusher muttered. "Find this San-Ta's route, lay an ambush."

Yeah, funny you should say that, Barricade thought. He tapped his console. "NORAD."

"NORAD?" Brawl jumped to his feet, fists balling, outraged. "He is not! You take that back. Right. NOW."

"Shut up, Brawl," Bonecrusher barked. "Your own smell is making you stupid again."

"NORAD," Starscream said, idly, as though explaining to the mentally dim, which was Brawl, so he was, for once, not overacting, "Is the North American Aerospace Defense Command. They track this San-Ta's mission every year."

"North. American. Aero…? That's not even close to NORAD." Blackout seemed personally offended. "I mean, there's a way to do acronyms, and that? Not it."

"Yeah, well. Humans suck. We've established this." Repeatedly, Barricade thought.

"You do realize," Grindor said, "That this whole San-Ta story is a myth, right? San-Ta was created to sell human beverages."

"Yeah. Energon. Last year. DID IT." Frag. Seriously. You trying to one-up me on research, copter? Barricade's lower optics narrowed into hot red slits.

"No. I mean, he's not real. He's a squishy in a suit."

"They're all in suits, hopefully. Have you seen these things naked?" Blackout shuddered. "All like…hairy and dangly and jiggly."

So much disturbing in that. Starting with, how/when Blackout had seen suitless humans.

"No, I mean it's different humans. In different suits." Grindor stood up, moving to the console and activating a search. He dug up newspapers, cutting into pictures of San-Tas at malls. "See? How does he manage to be in all these places at once?"

"Clearly," Barricade said, loudly, "He has mastered some sorta foldspace technology." Which would be another reason to want to snatch this San-Ta. What they could do with this sort of technology…?

Grindor looked down at him over his massive sonic generator, almost pityingly. "Really? That's the theory you're going with?"

"Got a better explanation?"

"I just gave you one. He's not real. It's a thing for human dronelings."

"If," Starscream said, joining in, apparently simply because he wanted attention as he joined them at the console, his long talons clicking swiftly over the keys, "this San-Ta was only for dronelings, then how do you explain this?" He called up the NORAD Santa Tracker. "Surely you don't think the entire American government would stoop to playing at some…droneling story?"

"They _are_ evil," Grindor retorted, but it was half-hearted at best. Heh. Even the copter had to admit that throwing high technology and scrambling jets to foster some droneling myth was a bit ridiculous.

And that meant Barricade's plan? Wasn't. ...at least by comparison.

"So what's the stupid plan," Bonecrusher rolled up, wheels squeaking. Frag. He did that deliberately.

"BRILLIANT plan," Barricade countered. "First. Jetface over here is going to intercept this San-Ta, by tracking him with NORAD."

"We shall use their pitiful technology against them," Starscream said. "I approve."

"You also approve of showing off in front of other jets," Barricade muttered.

"You say that, Barricade, as though that is a bad thing." A smirk.

"Anything involving you is a bad thing," Bonecrusher said, tipping his head over to glare from his beetly face.

Oh frag. Save it for the Autobots and elves. Seriously. "You," Barricade said, "Will be ground deployed in an area of high 'mall' concentration. The more San-Ta manifestations around, the better chance to intercept one."

"Grindor, Blackout. You're on droneling runs. Their missions will be to assist Bonecrusher by infiltrating these malls and flushing out the prey."

"Fantastic." Blackout hadn't moved from his spot on the far wall, but his complete lack of enthusiasm drifted like a bad smell all the way to Barricade.

Oh, no, wait. That was Brawl, who had bounced up behind Bonecrusher.

"And what do I do?"

"You go stand in the corner," Bonecrusher snapped.

Brawl nodded and marched over to the corner, standing facing it. "Is this helping?"

It would, in a minute, when the ventilation cleared the air. "Close enough."

"You don't need him," Bonecrusher said. "He's an idiot."

"But I'm _your_ idiot!" Brawl burbled.

"Am I going to have to come over there?" Bonecrusher growled, irritably.

"Yes?" Hopeful light in the dim red optics.

"No." Bonecrusher said. "Not till you're 10% less stupid. Now make yourself smarter."

"Okay!" Whang! Brawl turned, enthusiastically whacking his head against the bulkhead. Clang! "I feel smartererer alread-uhhhhhhf." Brawl collapsed into a pile of green and smelly.

A long moment where the rest of the mechs simply...stared.

"Now that that's…uh…settled." Wow. If Barricade ever wondered about the health of his interpersonal relationships, at least they made more sense than…you know…that. "Let's get to it. We have a San-Ta to kidnap."

"We." Grindor tilted his head. "What are you going to be doing while, you know, the rest of us are exposed to danger?"

"That is an excellent question, Grindor." Starscream's head swiveled to Barricade, expectantly.

"Me? Monitoring."

"Of course. And you certainly wouldn't, while monitoring, find yourself, say, attempting to monitor where we hid your presents?"

Barricade drew himself up into what he hoped passed for an entirely outrage stiffness. "What! How dare you! Of course not! I'm a mech of honor." Well…his own special kind of honor. And besides. He still had some last minute shopping to do.


End file.
